Phil,
very good idea.
Is anybody aware of some RDF for OGC Catalog Services?
If not I will tinker a draft quite soon.
Best regards
Thomas
Am 06.08.2012 14:46, schrieb Phil Archer:
> Having been involved with a number of conversations recently, and
> being aware of many more, I am proposing a new Community Group around
> vocabularies for describing locations.
>
> See http://www.w3.org/community/groups/proposed/#locadd
>
> Background
> ==========
> This is hardly a new idea and the last thing I want to do is to fall
> into the XKCD trap [1]. Nevertheless, we have different organisations
> having similar but separate conversations at the moment, mostly born
> of different use cases and perspectives. This is normal but I think
> some sort of coordination could be beneficial.
>
> GeoSPARQL
> =========
> The OGC has completed work on GeoSPARQL [2]. This is favoured by the
> likes of (UK mapping agency) Ordnance Survey and has been produced
> primarily by geospatial experts with an interest in linked data.
>
> NeoGeo
> ======
> A community effort has produced NeoGeo [3]. This is favoured by the
> likes of (French mapping agency) IGN and has been produced primarily
> by linked data experts with an interest in geospatial data.
>
> The primary difference between GeoSPARQL and NeoGeo is in the way they
> handle point, line and polygon literals. Both enjoy significant
> support and implementation experience.
>
>
> INSPIRE
> =======
> Is a European Commission Directive that legally obliges the Member
> States of the European Union to publish environmental and geospatial
> data using a common set of standards which are under various stages of
> development [4].
>
>
> ISA Programme Location Core Vocabulary
> ======================================
> Produced by a working group chaired by the team responsible for the
> development of INSPIRE under the auspices of a different part of the
> European Commission, this very lightweight vocabulary includes
> properties and classes for describing locations and for recording
> addresses in a manner conformant with INSPIRE - a feature not shared
> by vCARD for example. Now a work item of the W3C Government Linked
> Data WG [5], the vocabulary needs further community review and
> refinement [6].
>
>
> schema.org
> ==========
> Includes basic classes and properties for locations including:
> - addresses (a clone of vCard) http://schema.org/PostalAddress
> - lat/long (a clone of WGS84) http://schema.org/GeoCoordinates
> - geoShape (including boc, circle, line & polygon)
> http://schema.org/GeoShape
>
> It inherits things like name, URL and description from
> schema.org/Thing which are at least analogous to things like
> Geographic Names and Geographic Identifiers.
>
> schema.org includes containedIn but not, AFAICT, borders etc. The
> schema.org location properties seem closely linked with event
> vocabulary. Classes include Mountain, Body of Water, Continent etc.
>
> The current list of proposed extensions to schema.org [7] does not
> include anything in this space and there is no (visibly active)
> discussion associated with schema.org and location.
>
>
> W3C Point of Interest
> =====================
> I'm sorry to say that the Points of Interest WG [8] seems to have hit
> the buffers so that the March 2012 draft [9] looks like being as far
> as it gets. This just at a time when more and more data is being
> published, a lot of it related to locations and, well, points of
> interest. The ideas behind the POI WG remain as important as ever but
> it seems that a new focus is necessary if that work is to be leveraged
> effectively.
>
>
> Standards bodies
> ================
> OGC and W3C are both willing to help if required but what actually
> *is* required? That's what the proposed community group is to find
> out. When we know that, we can look at where any work should be done.
> Like any membership organisation, both W3C and OGC put the wishes of
> their members first. Both bodies are very willing to work together.
>
>
> Possible outcomes
> =================
> One possible outcome is a standard that is backwards compatible with
> GeoSPARQL and NeoGeo and that combines aspects of both. The danger
> there is that this would lead to an over-complex standard that could
> never be fully implemented - which is about as big a pointless waste
> of time as can be imagined. However, the two are close and common
> ground shouldn't be hard to find.
>
> At the other extreme is that everyone carries on in in their own way
> and, well, people can pick and choose. This seems less than ideal to
> me. If interoperability between data sets is important then we need to
> make some effort to coordinate.
>
> The gaps seem to be around linked-data friendly INSPIRE standards,
> particularly wrt addresses, and in handling geometry literals that can
> be huge (no one is talking about yet another way to define points
> lines and polygons btw!).
>
> What I hope the proposed group could achieve is:
>
> - consensus on the use cases/gaps that need be filled;
> - at least a rough solution that takes full account of the existing
> work highlighted here.
>
> If that can be done, the GLD WG's charter would allow it to take this
> through the W3C Recommendations Track, assuming the continued support
> and interest of the community. The WG itself does not have the
> resources and geospatial expertise to see this through on its own.
>
> If this interests you, do please join the Community Group at
> http://www.w3.org/community/groups/proposed/#locadd and post your ideas.
>
> Thank you
>
> Phil.
>
>
>
> [1] http://xkcd.com/927/
> [2] http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/geosparql
> [3] http://geovocab.org/doc/neogeo/
> [4] http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/index.cfm/pageid/2
> [5] http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/
> [6] http://philarcher.org/isa/locn-v1.00.html although officially I
> should point you to http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/core_location/home
> [7] http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/SchemaDotOrgProposals
> [8] http://www.w3.org/2010/POI/
> [9] http://www.w3.org/2010/POI/documents/Core/core-20111216.html
>
>
--
Thomas Bandholtz
Principal Consultant
innoQ Deutschland GmbH
Krischerstr. 100,
D-40789 Monheim am Rhein, Germany
http://www.innoq.comthomas.bandholtz@innoq.com
+49 178 4049387
http://innoq.com/de/themen/linked-data (German)
https://github.com/innoq/iqvoc/wiki/Linked-Data (English)